A fair trade: work for housing

October 24, 2007

The Chicago Housing Authority plans to require more tenants to get jobs or go to school if they wish to stay in CHA housing. This idea has brought forth some complaints, just as the CHA did two years ago when it established work requirements for people who wanted to transfer to the authority's new mixed-income housing.

The CHA is likely to get an earful when it holds a public hearing on the proposed new rules on Wednesday. A vote by the CHA board is planned for Nov. 20.

The CHA has this absolutely right. The work/study rules are not intended as punishment. They're intended as an incentive for people to lead purposeful lives. The proposed requirements are not only fair, they're overdue.

The CHA wants to require 5,000 able-bodied adults who live in traditional public housing to work or attend school for at least 15 hours a week. That would rise to 20 hours a week in 2010. Those who fail to make a good-faith effort could be evicted, beginning in July. The CHA plans to extend this work or study requirement eventually to the 35,000 residents in the Section 8 private housing voucher program.

The CHA would allow plenty of common-sense exemptions to the new rules. Anyone who is blind or disabled, or anyone who is the primary caretaker of someone blind or disabled, would be exempt. So would anyone 62 or older or anyone who is retired and receiving a pension. Tenants who can prove they have legitimately, but unsuccessfully, tried to get a job would not be evicted.

The CHA promises to help tenants with job training, drug treatment services and child care. The CHA, to its credit, already aggressively pursues job training for tenants.

Experience suggests the new requirements will not cause great dislocations. Since 2005, tenants who moved into the coveted CHA mixed income housing have had to work at least 30 hours a week. Only a handful of the 1,500 residents who came under that work requirement have left, the CHA says.

It has been more than a decade since federal welfare reform pushed the idea that citizens who receive the government's help should be expected to help themselves through work or education requirements. There were predictions of dire consequences. But welfare reform proved to be a smashing success.